Adrienne Thorne, the new “pastor” who is praised for being the first African American woman to lead the historic New York Riverside Church, recently preached a sermon questioning God and the Bible because the Bible states that David was repentant for his sexual immorality with Bathsheba.
Continuing the “David raped Bathsheba” nonsense perpetuated by feminists throughout all walks of Evangelicalism, including the Southern Baptist Convention, Thorne takes this false teaching to its logical conclusion—God is racist, sexist, and anti-gay.
“David lay with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered. And so does one horrible, dispicable act wipe out all the good David has done?” she questions, suggesting that it is probably the case. “At the very least, it complicates things.”
“But for me, I don’t trust this character, I don’t trust his story or his repentance,” she says, denying David’s cry for mercy in Psalm 51. “After Anita Hill, and Christine Blasey Ford and all the unnamed women, it is challenging to trust this character.”
“Now I know that tradition teaches that David recognizes his sin and repents, Good for him,” she continued. “But what about Bathsheba? Because I also know that the tradition favors men. The tradition favors whiteness. The tradition favors wealth and protects those with power and quite frankly the tradition has given us a world that continues to prop up attitudes and behaviors that are death-dealing to women and girls, to indigenous siblings, to LGBTQ plus people in our community, to folks of color and culture.”
“Ancient stories like this one, unexamined, uninterrogated, give cover to men who send messengers to get women,” she said. “And why does David get to be the only one called a man after God’s own heart?” she said. “What does that say to women and girls? And what does that say to other men and boys and the question I really don’t want to ask: What does that say about God?”
